Canker Threatens Manatee Citrus

Outbreaks Of The Disease Since The Mid-1980s Have Cost Florida $75 Million To Control.

June 12, 1997|By Jerry Jackson of The Sentinel Staff

Now it's a war on two fronts.

State agriculture officials on Wednesday confirmed several cases of Asian citrus canker in Manatee County, even as they expanded the territory around Tampa to spray for Mediterranean fruit flies.

Asian canker and Medflies are two of the severest threats to Florida's $6 billion-a-year agriculture industry.

Neither is harmful to humans, but each wreaks untold damage on crops worldwide.

Canker and Medflies can trigger national and international embargoes on Florida fruit movement - although that has not happened. And agriculture officials vow to eradicate both threats to prevent any quarantine.

But the surprise canker finds - two in Repetto family groves where the disease was stamped out before, and one each in other nearby groves - complicated the picture.

Federal and state inspectors, encamped in Tampa since the first Medfly was found May 28 in a state-monitored trap, turned some of their attention southward to the canker outbreak.

''Tests are still preliminary, but I can confirm that it's Asian canker,'' said Terry McElroy, spokesman for Agriculture Commissioner Bob Crawford.

The state has tangled with canker and Medflies simultaneously before, although it is rare. Inspectors said they could not recall initial finds coming so closely together.

The plan of canker attack is still being mapped out, but the state previously uprooted and burned infected trees and nearby trees to achieve eradication.

Medflies remained the major worry, and officials twice on Wednesday expanded the territory in Hillsborough County to be blanketed from the air with a Medfly-killing pesticide.

The zone was enlarged from 88 square miles to 140 square miles to cover most of eastern and central Hillsborough.

''We've found more flies, 105 of them so far,'' said Maeve McConnell, spokeswoman for the state Division of Plant Industry.

A third helicopter was hastily outfitted to spray malathion, beginning as early as Saturday, and a fourth helicopter was being prepared for standby, McConnell said.

Spraying is expected to continue once a week for at least two months - at a cost of $3 million or more.

The tiny flies attack more than 250 kinds of fruits and vegetables, burrowing inside to deposit their eggs and ruining the produce.

There is no chemical weapon against canker, a bacterial disease that spreads unseen like a ghostly plague, scarring fruit and weakening trees only when the infection is deeply entrenched.

Canker is found throughout Asia and parts of South America.

It is transmitted short distances by wind and rain, insects and birds - and longer distances by humans. The bacterium can cling to tires, the soles of shoes and equipment, such as mowers and fruit boxes.

Few regions of the world have had such success in repeatedly stamping out the imported threats. Florida's success is attributed mostly to early detection and massive frontal attacks.

But resources will be spread this time. Agriculture officials continue battling a stubborn canker infestation in residential citrus trees dotting Dade County, an outbreak that surfaced in 1995. The cost so far is about $5 million.

Federal agriculture officials recently agreed to contribute $17 million to help Florida in its ongoing canker campaign. Asian-canker outbreaks beginning in 1986 in Manatee, Pinellas, Sarasota and Hillsborough counties took years to control at a cost to the state of about $70 million.